That kind of man
by Strictly-untalkative
Summary: He had only just regenerated, he was bruised and tired. He did not want a lecture, and certainly not from himself. ONESHOT. Ten and Eleven argue! Please R


'Security protocol eleven activated, new biological data detected. How will you proceed?'

The Doctor started at the sound of his old voice, suddenly coming from one of the speakers on what was left of the console.

'Deactivate protocol!' he snapped, 'I don't have time to listen to what seemed like a good idea last week, and you are in _pieces_ old girl! – let's concentrate on that!' There was no more word from the console and he sighed in relief. He had crashed, he was tired from the regeneration and he had a pretty bad cut on his forehead – he did _not_ want to listen to the man he had just finished being _whining_, he hadn't even figured out who he was _now _yet.

'Request denied.' The voice sounded out again, and the Doctor could have sworn it sounded smug.

'Damn and blast!' he muttered, 'I don't want to hear it – Go. Away.' He added childishly, and then scolded himself for sounding as young as he looked.

'Hello there, Doctor.' The voice came again, but the time not from the speaker grille, the Doctor span around, finding himself face to face with a life sized hologram of himself, well, his tenth self – it wasn't him anymore.

'Hello, Doctor.' He replied politely,

'This protocol had been activated following my death and subsequent regeneration. New Time lord biology has been scanned. Will you confirm that you are the Doctor?' The hologram reeled off in an official sounding voice, and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

'Yes yes, I _am_ the Doctor.' He sighed, putting a hand against his temple and massaging it tiredly.

'Thank you.' The Hologram replied pointlessly and then suddenly became more animated as the protocols finished and the real recording began.

'Well,' it said, and the Doctor noted it was wearing his clever specs. 'here we are then, you and me, us, _The Doctor_.' The Hologram almost looked bitter when it said this, and the Doctor knew why, he'd been there after all, been _him_.

'Yes, here we are.' He replied quietly.

'You know what I'm going to say, you said it after all.' It continued quietly.

'Yes, and that's why this is pointless!' the Doctor said, exasperated, 'Not to mention that you're only a hologram anyway, a _recording_, you can't hear what I'll say.

'I can guess.' The Hologram said, 'I know you pretty well after all.' The Doctor glared at it.

'Fine,' he muttered, 'get on with it.'

'I'm dead,' the Hologram said frankly, 'I've died.' It said again, running a hand through its hair, and the Doctor took a second to study his past self – he really had been very skinny.

'And I tried so hard not to, I _really_ liked this one, but then again – you know that. And you know that all my efforts obviously didn't work. Oh God, I hope no-one else died, none of my friends.' The Hologram suddenly looked panicked and the Doctor felt the need to reassure it, pointless as the practice was.

'No-one else died, we saved them, that was the point.' He said gently, but the Hologram couldn't hear.

'But that's the point of this message really, my friends.' it continued, but then it paused, 'Get to that in a minute though,' it said suddenly, 'I wonder what you look like, I bet you're older than me, well older _looking_, you _are_ older than me after all.' The Hologram pondered to itself, and the Doctor almost laughed.

'Wrong.' He said, 'Younger than ever, and with _really_ girly hair.' He tugged at it again as the Hologram continued.

'I'd quite liked to be old again,' it mused, 'not _too_ old, but, authoritative, authoritative and clever. Ooo! Like Stephen Fry! I _love _Stephen Fry – great guy, and a good kisser too, actually.' The Hologram ran a hand across the back of its neck, looking sheepish.

'I always did get easily sidelined.' The Doctor pondered.

'Just a little.' The Hologram admitted, predicting his words again. 'But anyway,' the Hologram took off its glasses, looking deadly serious again. 'this is about my friends.'

'Yes, I know.' The Doctor said wearily.

'Leave them alone.' The Hologram said, and he made it sound like an order.

'You know you can't actually just tell me to do that.' The Doctor replied, frowning at the image of his younger self, he had known what the Hologram was going to say, but hearing it was different, and he felt an odd stirring in both of his hearts.

'Can you remember what I said, what _we_ said, when I was newly regenerated, when I was stood high above London on Christmas day with Rose and Jackie and Mickey and even Harriet Jones? I said no second chances, that I was that kind of man.'

'But _I'm_ not.' The Doctor replied stubbornly, he didn't even know what type of man _he_ was yet.

'And I don't know what kind of man you might think that you are, but I want that to stand. You don't get a second chance with them, I have died and you are not me, you are the Doctor, certainly, but you are not _me_. And I don't want you hurting them.'

'Like I'd do that!' the Doctor scoffed, but the Hologram hadn't finished.

'Because we've done it before; we hurt them, we leave them, and we forget them. We _change_, and things are never the same after that – you know that as well as I do.' The Doctor stared at the image, affronted.

'Nonsense,' he said, 'Maybe that's happened, it _has_ happened – I admit it – on occasion, but you can't just lay claim to my friends!'

'_My_ friends.' The Hologram said coldly, 'You don't care about them like I do; you don't _know_ them like I do.'

'I know them just fine!' The Doctor replied, equally cold.

'What's Martha's favourite book?' The Hologram asked suddenly, and the Doctor was too surprised by the question to formulate an answer.

'Umm…' he started.

'Donna's favourite restaurant? Where did Jack take you and Rose dancing when you first met him? What's Martha's favourite planet? What was that brilliant joke Banakafalata told us on the Titanic? What did Jackie give you that Christmas that made you blush for the first time in over two hundred years?' The Doctor took an involuntary step back from the onslaught – he could remember recording the questions, but not the answers.

'Shut up!' he shouted, but the Hologram didn't stop.

'What's Donna's birthday? What planet did Astrid come from?'

'Security protocol eleven deactivate!' the Doctor ordered desperately.

'What was the last thing you said to Jack? Do you remember Mickey's grandmother's name?' The Hologram's voice had begun to rise, in both volume and pitch.

'DO YOU LOVE ROSE TYLER?' It demanded, practically screaming at him now, and all the Doctor could do was stand there and watch the image of his tenth self as it regained its breath, tears forming in it's eyes.

'Do you?' it whispered, 'Because maybe you still can, I have loved her for two lives now, and maybe you could love her for a third.' The Hologram paused again, but the Doctor didn't have an answer for it. 'I doubt it.' it said, 'And if you can't hold onto something that big, that _important_, then how can you hold onto the little things? So please answer me, do you still love her? Because if you don't then please leave them all behind, just forget them like you've forgotten to love Rose.' The Hologram paused and shook its head as though the mere thought of forgetting upset it – and the Doctor remember how much it _had_.

'If I can, I'll say goodbye to them, and I want that to be a _real _goodbye.' The Hologram put its hands on its face and wiped the excess moisture from its eyes, before looking back up again, and for the first time, the Doctor felt it was actually looking at him, and it looked resigned.

'Whatever it was,' It muttered, 'You better have been worth it.' The Doctor nodded, he could answer that well enough.

'It was worth it, _Wilf _was worth it.' He answered seriously.

'Oh and you _better_ be ginger.' The Hologram added, and then it faded away.

The Doctor stood and stared at where the Hologram had been standing, and a moment later, he was ready to answer.

'No, I don't love her.' he admitted quietly, and then shook his head rapidly, trying to clear his thoughts.

Then something occurred to him.

'O.k. then.' He said to what remained of the TARDIS interior, suddenly looking happy and confident. 'New starts, _that's_ what kind of man I am.' Without another word he grabbed a couple of things from the floor, clambered over some of the rubble to the door, and then opened it.

And the Doctor walked out into his eleventh life, brand new and ready for anything.

* * *

**My my, aren't I writing a lot at the moment...**

**This is more random, and unlike 'Goodbye' and the other one I have yet to publish, it wasn't thought of immediately after the ep - this one only came to me this morning. **

**I sort of wanted a way for 11 and 10 to argue, or at least have a heated conversation and the only way I could think of to do it - short of something really long which would have involved time travel and exposistion - was a hologram, like the one 9 used to say goodbye to Rose in The Parting of the Ways. **

**I could imagine ten doing this, because he's emotional, and also because he does like a bit of a lecture, and I just sort of had eleven answer as I assume he would.**

**I hope that someone out there likes this.**

**And that someone laughs at Stephen Fry's little mention. XP  
**


End file.
